Sutures are available in a variety of materials, shapes and sizes. One such shape is a “flat” filament, where a plurality of fibers are braided such that the resulting filament is significantly wider than it is tall, resulting in a flat, or planar shape. Such sutures or filaments can be useful, for example, in increasing the contact surface area between the suture and the underlying soft tissue to help increase the contact footprint of the soft tissue against the underlying bone. This is particularly useful in, for example, rotator cuff repairs where a “suture bridge” is formed over the upper surface of the cuff to compress the cuff tissue to the underlying bone. Another advantage of such flat sutures is that the larger surface area distributes forces exerted on the tissue by the suture such that there is less of a chance the suture will cut into the tissue relative to a thinner suture (e.g., a traditional round suture).
Current flat filaments on the market, however, suffer from multiple drawbacks such that surgeons have been slow to utilize them. For example, upon applying tension to such flat filaments, the filament tends to fold onto itself (i.e., across its width) such that its entire surface area is not utilized (i.e., the entirety of the surface area, defined by its width, is not utilized). This folding-over action results in a contact surface area that is generally the same as a traditional round suture. Also, known flat filaments tend to fray or pull apart easily, particularly when being manipulated by an instrument, or the like. As such, the structural integrity of the filament is compromised.